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Schnucks
Schnucks is a supermarket chain. Based in suburban St. Louis, the company was started in 1939 with the opening of a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) store in north St. Louis city and now operates 100 stores in five states throughout the Midwest. Schnucks also ran stores under the Logli Supermarkets and Hilander Foods banners. Schnucks is one of the largest privately held supermarket chains in the United States. History Schnuck Markets, Inc. was founded in St. Louis in 1943. In 1943, its first large-scale retail store was opened, measuring 2,700 square feet (250 m2). By 1952, its first major store was opened in Brentwood, a St. Louis suburb. The Schnucks symbol, a soldier, was introduced in 1968 (during the Vietnam War). Schnucks continued to grow, adopting the motto "Friendliest Stores In Town" and acquiring stores in Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin. A previous merger in 1970 had seen Schnucks acquire the Bettendorf-Rapp chain of grocery stores—temporarily forming the Schnucks-Bettendorf's chain (a joke was that an initially proposed name for the merged company was "Schnuckendorfs") until the latter half of the combined name was dropped a couple of years later—just as Bettendorf's had swallowed up the Rapp chain of stores to form Bettendorf-Rapp's in the 1960s. Schnucks underwent a major expansion in 1995 when it purchased from Loblaws the National Supermarkets chain, also based in St. Louis. Schnucks' growth in the St. Louis area was bolstered by the local abandonment of two major supermarket chains: A&P in the 1970s, and Kroger in 1986. Expansion In 2002, Schnucks agreed to buy 12 Seessel's stores in the Memphis, Tennessee area, from Albertsons, Inc. Schnucks operated these stores until September 2011. Kroger subsequently purchased these stores; eight reopened as Kroger, with the others closing altogether. Seven convenience stores operating under the Schnucks name also were sold, to be converted to the Kroger-owned brand Kwik Shop. In 2008 Schnucks acquired grocery store Hart Food and Drug in O'Fallon, IL making it the fifth Schnucks in St. Clair County. In August 2009, Schnucks opened a store in downtown St. Louis. This store, in the center of the downtown business district, is called "Culinaria – A Schnucks Market" and is being advertised as a "new urban prototype." The store includes 20,800-square-foot (1,930 m2) of shopping space, an additional 6,306-square-foot (585.8 m2) mezzanine with a wine department, tapas/wine bar, a full-service pharmacy, meat and seafood departments, florist, bakery, and a Kaldi's Coffee bar. The placement of the store reflects the downtown area's urban renewal of the 21st century, including loft-style condominiums and apartments. (See Washington Avenue Loft District, St. Louis and Downtown St. Louis.) In September 2011, Schnucks purchased seven former Hilander stores in the Rockford, Illinois area from The Kroger Co. In May 2014, Schnucks closed three of the seven former Hilander stores. One property was sold, and the other two are vacant and for sale. Due to the highly competitive market, Schnucks had a non-compete clause which meant that a grocery store could not move into these vacant locations, but the city has since passed an ordinance to block such restrictions. In September of 2018 Schnucks announced the purchase of 19 Shop 'n Save locations (14 in Missouri and 5 in Illinois; all in the St. Louis metropolitan area) from SuperValu, along with one standalone pharmacy in Union, Missouri and the prescription files from 10 additional Shop 'n Save stores not included in the sale. This announcement came shortly after Schnucks purchased a former Shop 'n Save in Maplewood, Missouri in August 2018.Category:Supermarkets Category:Retailers Category:Retailers by type Category:Discount stores Category:Department stores